I've played dual Vic II in a Rhymerball almost exclusively for the past 2 months. Jerjerrod will be so much more useful than Motti. The reason Vics only ever go straight when fighting is because they can't turn. I almost always lose a Vic because I have to go straight and land in arc and in range of another ship. Trust me, I've gotten really good at positioning Vics and flying them side by side. The people I play with are always surprised by how close I can fly them and still make a turn without overlapping when one needs to peel off and "give chase" to a ship or place my arc to threaten incoming ships.

More so, I've heard plenty of times that the best offensive command is a Navigate. Getting in position and double arcing or threatening multiple ships will always be more effective than a squad or CF command. Every command has a place, but Navigates are the most important to time and use. In the words of IFF, "With Jerjerrod, your Engineering commands are better than Navigates" because you can repair 2 shields and pay 1 to get the extra clicks. And now you can also throw a squad command and use Jerjerrod to quickly get your front arc in position to "catch" your opponents ships when they fly in front of you.

Both Vics and ISDs suffer when they can't use their front arc. Try killing anything with just your side arcs. You basically pay 100+ points for a ship that gets to use its main arc maybe 3 times.

Don't underestimate the offensive and defensive power of Jerjerrod. Being able make a 90 degree turn will make Vics very scary.

Also, check out that post about Jerjerrod and a Navigate on a speed 3 ISD. It can make an insane "inside" maneuver where it changes its front arc but barely moves forward. I don't have a link or remember what the thread was called, so maybe someone else can post it.

Jerrjerrod allows you to triple the VSD's turning ability for zero command dials (doubles it at speed 1) and gives somewhere between a 50% (speed 2) and 100% (speed 1 and 3) improvement to ISDs' turning too. I'm constantly using Navigate commands with my heavier Imperial ships, especially VSDs, so their front arcs remain relevant. You can use Jerrjerrod on a dime when you need him and you don't need to queue him up like a Navigate command. Your bigger ships are already going to want to Engineer once the fight gets going so the damage is a minimal hassle and he opens up a lot of room for your big capital ships to issue Squadron commands when previously they would've been stuck deciding between Navigating to be a gunship or Squadrons to be a carrier and being a little disappointed no matter what they did. He's also got potential with Raiders and GSDs going speed 3+, which can help those navigate-dependent ships in numerous ways. I don't know what to tell you if you don't see the potential in any of that.

I don't think he's going to be the clearly best Imperial commander, but the maneuverability benefits he provides to the big ships that are currently disfavored at least in part because they're constantly getting outmaneuvered by small ships everywhere makes me excited for him.

Every time I see someone mention Jerjerrod as a bonus, I keep thinking he isn't as big of a help as everyone thinks he is. Sato can enhance shots at long range and trigger criticals. Jerjerrod works if the enemy is only trying to get around you, or you have a speedster list. For VSDs, he does not:

(...)

Frankly I'd rather have Sato on the Imperial side. I'm getting tired of these watered-down Imperial admirals not making an impact. Wave 3 and it feels like we're still falling back on Screed and Motti for the most reliable options. Tagge is too sensitive on getting his timing right, and Konstantine demands bigger ships that are either Expensive, or VSDs.

And right now, there are people arguing that Sato isn't worth the trouble he is for a measly 0.5 increase in damage....

So, y'know, to each their own.....

I have used a proxy Jerjerrod a couple of times and it has been impressive, actually. Last time I think was on an ISD-II making a tight turn. Perhaps I need to run more games with him to be convinced. All I know though is that VSDs have the two glaring problems of speed and protection and Jerjerrod helps neither issue. Even pulling the tight turn damages the VSD, a ship that in most cases sucks up a lot of damage because of how easily brace is locked down and how often the ship is outnumbered. *Shrug*

Imperial Sato would have been impressive for a few reasons that I can think of. TIE Fighters might have been a thing again for that cheap, easy fighter bonus. I think Empire has more access overall to crit effects too (Every non-flotilla ship in the Imperial navy has access to a torpedo or Ion cannon), so Sato firing those effects at their maximum range of the ship is a pretty neat idea. An interesting tradeoff vs screed's certainty to make it happen.

Believe me, for now, every move made by the Armada conceptor had a reason.

Maybe some upgrade don't seems to have a good reason to exist or a good ratio dommage/price but there is always something behind.

That, at least, is my point of view (thinking for the big picture)

Judging from the calculations I'm doing, dark side Sato would love Raiders. But the advantage over screed only comes at medium range or better.

Screed would probably be picked on lists that want to gurantee those crits for maximum effect (like APT swarms). However, Evil Sato lists running, say, VSD-Is could fire at long range and activate their APT blasts after resolving a fighter command, and could pack Ordnance Experts for this ranged shot AND for when they have to attack at their ideal range.

THRAWN! THRAWN! THRAWN! THRAWN!!!

I would expect Thrawn to be one of the most expensive commanders in the game. Also the most dangerous. And the most interesting.

Probably at this point, Thrawn is also the most hyped.

I wonder if this would work for Thrawn... keeping him on the 30-40 points side of things but still keeping in line with his background

at the start of each game turn you can copy the abilities of an enemy character

Even better, as long as thrawn is alive the opponents admiral has no effect.

Well, his canon background (Rebels) mainly has him sitting around steepling his fingers and going "I knew this would happen."

So he isn't awesome in new-canon yet.

Well, his canon background (Rebels) mainly has him sitting around steepling his fingers and going "I knew this would happen."

So he isn't awesome in new-canon yet.

He baited the Rebels into moving first by hanging Konstantine out as bait. So by that scene his text should basically be the title "Defiance" for an entire fleet.

The ARQ on the other hand is a nice godsend for folks like me who like Gunships. I look at my fleet options, and if I have to start taking fighter clouds, I want something cheaper that has some ranged guns. I know I want two ARQs already, and I can't wait to experiment with their usage in the fleet. DTTs are going to be coming as standard equipment.

So I'm really new, and missing why the DTTs are so good. Is it because they can be used to "replace" a poorly rolled blank die?

Thrawn hasn't begun really maneuvering yet, and as noted he plays the long game. At this point though, he has definitely instilled a deep fear in the Ghost crew and Pheonix squadron. His ability to sniff out deception when faced with Rebel activity thus far has really been visible in the reactions of the Ghost cell. Without the help they received it would have been a very different ending to a number of those episodes.

I could almost see something on Thrawn along the lines of limiting the movement direction of enemy ships instead of simply altering their speed as Interdictors do. Maybe a crit effect that causes the recipient to reduce the maneuver value of one of their speeds by one? It would allow for the utter chaos and despair Thrawn is known to bring.

Either that or add a number of "cloaked astroid" tokens to the board, and any ship overlapping flips them, with around 6-8 tokens and 2-3 of them being actual astroids?

As a new player who likes Interdictors, I really just want more medium ships to work with on the Imp side...

DTT allows you to reroll one of your reds without "spending" anything else. Vader spends a defense token. Leading Shots spends a blue die. With DTT, you remove a die and add a new red, which you roll. It's relatively cheap and is the only die fixing for red dice in the turbolaser slot.

DTT allows you to reroll one of your reds without "spending" anything else. Vader spends a defense token. Leading Shots spends a blue die. With DTT, you remove a die and add a new red, which you roll. It's relatively cheap and is the only die fixing for red dice in the turbolaser slot.

Ok, that's how I thought it read. Thanks!

Either that or add a number of "cloaked astroid" tokens to the board, and any ship overlapping flips them, with around 6-8 tokens and 2-3 of them being actual astroids?

Love this idea. I don't know if it's something they'd actually do, but thematically very cool.

DTT allows you to reroll one of your reds without "spending" anything else. Vader spends a defense token. Leading Shots spends a blue die. With DTT, you remove a die and add a new red, which you roll. It's relatively cheap and is the only die fixing for red dice in the turbolaser slot.

Ok, that's how I thought it read. Thanks!

The better part is, you roll your new die first, and then delete a die...

So if your new fresh die is a blank, then you delete that one... No Harm, No Foul.

Either that or add a number of "cloaked astroid" tokens to the board, and any ship overlapping flips them, with around 6-8 tokens and 2-3 of them being actual astroids?

Love this idea. I don't know if it's something they'd actually do, but thematically very cool.

I just finished reading the Thrawn Trilogy for the first time, that was probably my favorite part of the whole series.

Either that or add a number of "cloaked astroid" tokens to the board, and any ship overlapping flips them, with around 6-8 tokens and 2-3 of them being actual astroids?

Love this idea. I don't know if it's something they'd actually do, but thematically very cool.

I just finished reading the Thrawn Trilogy for the first time, that was probably my favorite part of the whole series.

I just finished rereading it, and I loved that part.

Either that or add a number of "cloaked astroid" tokens to the board, and any ship overlapping flips them, with around 6-8 tokens and 2-3 of them being actual astroids?

Love this idea. I don't know if it's something they'd actually do, but thematically very cool.

I think this is probably the best or at least most appropriate Thrawn ability that I've read so far.